Fix You
by Ninja Stealth Noise
Summary: And the tears come streaming down your face, when you lose something you can't replace, when you love someone but goes to waste...could it be worse? A Norrington sonfic to Fix You by Coldplay. Slight Norrabeth.


Fix You

Norrington deserves a Coldplay songfic. Cuz they are rockin' and so is he. That is all.

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_When you try your best but you don't succeed  
When you get what you want but not what you need  
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep  
Stuck in reverse…  
_

James Norrington allowed himself to be helped to his feet by a pair of men, coughing sea water and causing the crust of salt around his lips to crack. He shook his head when they asked what had happened, and shook it again when they asked where he was from. Even shaking his head twice caused James's head to ache. He had tried _so hard_ to save them…

He desperately needed a glass of brandy, but he was too tired to ask. The two men hauled him to a tavern overlooking the sea. It was then that James wondered where he was. Something, James wasn't sure what, told him he was in a certain pirates' paradise.

Unfortunately, whisky and brandy were rich men's drinks. It was rum for James, or sea water. He chose the sooner, but cringed when the crude alcohol made itself known in his mouth all the same. When he found himself too intoxicated to care about his exhaustion, he asked where he was.

Tortuga. The 'something' in his head smirked in triumph, but in James's opinion, there was nothing in the world to smile about. He thanked the two men with a drunken slur and set off to find somewhere to sleep, or to simply lie down and hate himself.

_And the tears come streaming down your face  
When you loose something you can't replace  
When you love someone but it goes to waste  
Could it be worse?  
_

The odor of stale alcohol and mud hung about him as he staggered into the seventh tavern overlooking the sea. It was only his second week on the drunken island full of whores and pirates, but already he could not be told apart from the other godforsaken alcoholics that infested the giant brothel and tavern that was Tortuga, despite his navy uniform. His beloved blue jacket, like the rest of him, was caked in mud from frequent tossings out, and the gold trim was losing its lustre. The seat of his breeches was imprinted with many different shoe sole designs.

Swigging his eighth drink of the hour, he watched a bar fight gain momentum jadedly. He was too drunk to see an equally drunk man come up to him from behind. Before James knew it, he was being hoisted over the man's shoulders. His mug of rum spilled onto another man's head. In a matter of seconds, he lay in the street, bruised and broken and coughing. Straightening his tricorn hat, still atop a frayed and frizzy white wig, he tried to stand and succeeded on the fourth try. Brushing himself off, he wandered around in search of another tavern.

He found the Faithful Bride. Lumbering inside and crumpling into a half-broken chair, he couldn't help but notice a familiar face who seemed to be interviewing men, old and young, pirate and misguided merchant. James saw green when he spotted another painfully familiar face sitting in a corner and waving his bejeweled hand intoxicatedly over a small box while whispering to himself. Growling and ready for a fight, James stood and made his way over to the line, fingering his pistol.

He answered Joshamee Gibbs's questions without hesitation, all the while preoccupied with the pirate captain, Jack Sparrow, who had ruined his life and was sitting just out of his arm's reach. Finally, Gibbs touched a nerve. James overturned the table at which Gibbs sat and aimed his pistol at Captain Jack Sparrow.

After that, it was a green-tinted blur. This Sparrow had turned his life upside down. Without Jack to intervene, James would be happily married to Elizabeth and his work. It was Sparrow he had sailed through the storm for, Sparrow who caused James's entire crew to perish in the Caribbean waters. It was he who had caused him to relinquish his title. It was Jack Sparrow who had everything that James Norrington should have had. As soon as James had finished his mental tirade, blindly parrying and lunging with his sword, he felt a pain in the back of his skull that was certainly not a hangover.

_  
Lights will guide you home  
And ignite your bones  
And I will try to fix you  
_

_And high up above or down below  
When you're too in love to let it go  
But if you never try you'll never know  
Just what you're worth_

His eyes opened only to squint away the muck in them. He coughed and looked up. It was then that he had noticed a warm hand on shoulder. When he blinked the remaining filth away from his eyes, he saw a face he thought he would never see again. Elizabeth.

"James Norrington," she said softly, "What has the world done to you?"

He replied, "Nothing I didn't deserve."

His head was reeling as she guided him down the street overlooking the sea and onto a bustling dock. James felt a sense of nonsensical disappointment and frustration when she left his side and caught up the Captain Sparrow. Not a minute after she and Jack began to argue, James felt an unpleasant rising sensation in his throat. Throwing his upper torso over the rail of the dock, he emptied the contents of his stomach. After a minute of gagging and dry retching, he heard Jack throw an insult in his general direction, asking what a bloody awful-looking bloke like him was doing there. James retorted without thinking,

"You hired me, I can't help if your standards are lax." He scoffed when Jack replied childishly, not even bothering to dignify the man with an answer. He turned around and vomited once more, then settled for gazing at Elizabeth while throwing in not-so-helpful comments into their conversation.

The next morning, he felt like a kicked puppy with a painful awareness of its stupidity. Elizabeth had hurt him, left him for that damn blacksmith, and still he felt for her. Still he wanted her to smile at the thought of him, to look him over from head to toe like she did her William. Shaking his head doggedly, he left his hammock in the crew's quarters to receive his orders for the day. Taking orders from pirates, he thought, proves one worthless.

Lights will guide you home  
And ignite your bones  
And I will try to fix you

_Tears stream, down your face  
When you lose something you cannot replace  
Tears stream down your face  
And I…  
_

He needed the Heart. He needed his title, his power, his clean clothes. No matter what the cost, he needed his dignity.

James looked at Elizabeth, who leaned against the ship railing, smiling as she thought of none other than Captain Jack Sparrow. Funnily enough, he felt nothing. Nothing at all. The promise of redemption was a light to him, a beacon that cast all else in shadow.

That night, James Lysander Norrington cried himself to sleep, thinking of his old sword, his liquor cabinet, his ship, his Elizabeth. Most of all, he thought of a bath to wash all the dirt away.

_Lights will guide you home  
And ignite your bones  
And I will try to fix you._

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End.

I really wanted to give this songfic a bit of an original feel, like he would be thinking of things taken for granted, like a bath, more than Elizabeth or his career.

Also, the green James sees in the tavern is not a typo. I do not mean that he sees red. I'll leave the symbolism to you folk.

Wah Tchaaaa!

Ninja Stealth Noise


End file.
